


strap yourself to a tree with roots

by jukeboxgraduate



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Gen, Multi, No tuberculosis, hidden rarepair agendas, in the sense that i fix canon problems and replace them with my own
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxgraduate/pseuds/jukeboxgraduate
Summary: Alternate ending fic in which nobody robs the Cornwall train and an attempt is made to settle down once and for all.
Relationships: Abigail Roberts Marston & Molly O'Shea, Abigail Roberts Marston/John Marston, Hosea Matthews/Dutch van der Linde
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	strap yourself to a tree with roots

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i hate writing aus, i don't even like reading them, i am very far from my comfort zone (thanks for the push julian, they convinced me to write this) and as a sucker for canon i had to suspend So Much disbelief while writing this so i hope it's just...coherent. 
> 
> it got way longer than intended and should be three chapters. i'll get the rest up as soon as i can (they're mostly done) but i work full time and don't have internet at my house. 
> 
> sorry for the bad pacing at the start but i hope you enjoy it otherwise.
> 
> title from "you ain't going nowhere" but the byrds' version specifically.

Though the cold is biting through Arthur’s coat, his clothes cold and damp around the edges, there is some odd beauty in the way the snow plays in the lanternlight. Arriving at some decrepit mining town, Arthur’s legs have long left the range of his awareness, bitten to numbness by the cold. Dutch pulls him back out into the cold to see about finding John or Micah, who never returned from scouting through the blizzard. They leave the ghost town behind them, and Arthur hopes they can find it again through the snow.

Robbing the ferry in Blackwater had gone more poorly than Arthur and Hosea had expected it to - they still don’t know just how poorly, with Jenny dead and three men unaccounted for - five, counting John and Micah, gone off scouting. As cold and tired as he may be, Arthur is grateful for the snow. As Dutch has said so many times now, no one will follow them through it. It may be the only thing in the last week that has worked out in their favor, if one could go so far as to call it such a thing.

Arthur regrets that he and Dutch find Micah first. He had been hoping - silently, save for a scoff and a glance at Hosea - that they would have lost him once and for all. It’s Micah’s fault they’re in this mess at all, Arthur thinks, he’s sure. Whatever happened on the ferry, it reeked of Micah’s filthy ways.

Micah tells them of a homestead ablaze with life, takes them to it, and they find themselves confronted by O’Driscolls, guns and all. As the gunfire dies down, Arthur regrets not having put a bullet in Micah when he would have had the chance. Next time, he thinks, and looks guiltily to Dutch at his side.

Arthur fills his pockets and his satchel with things from the house, glancing at and pointedly ignoring the portrait of the homesteaders and the signs of love and life throughout their cabin as he loots it.

“There was a woman here, Dutch,” Arthur says softly.

“I know. I’d say it’s good there ain’t no living sign of her, knowing Colm’s boys.”

“Should we take a look around?”

Dutch doesn’t answer. Arthur leaves to check the barn, finding only a skittish horse. He turns as a heavy, grunting weight slams into him. He throws the man to the ground, another faceless O’Driscoll. He beats him with his numb fists and shoves him out the door of the barn to leave and hopes Dutch or Micah don’t shoot him. Arthur turns his attention to the horse and its warmth as it calms under his frozen hands. As he leads it out, he hears a shrieking from the house.

Arthur wades through the snow and blinks at the sight before him from the doorway, finding Micah chasing some poor ragged woman around the table. Dutch hauls Micah back in time for Micah to spill a lantern to the floor, and as Dutch calms the woman and leads her out of her burning home, Arthur regrets another lost chance to have shot Micah with good reason.

They return to the mining town and Dutch deposits the woman - Mrs. Sadie Adler, she tells them - into the care of Abigail and the girls. Arthur collapses onto a cot that would surely smell of mold if it were in a warmer climate. He hears a fire crackling weakly, and Dutch and Hosea talking quietly under the wind whipping through the mountain. The tones of the conversation in the main room are unfamiliar and unpleasant, bringing none of the seemingly ancient comfort of the voices that had put Arthur to sleep so many times before. He feels too tired to breathe, too cold and tense to sleep.

Dutch’s voice rises into some resigned frustration and Hosea’s disappears. Arthur hears Dutch give a firm _goodnight, Hosea_ and his heavy footsteps retreat into the bunk room with Miss O’Shea. He hears a cot creak and Hosea cough in a barking, wet noise, and Arthur lets his eyes finally close.

\---

The snow piles up on the mountain, burying them deeper into Colter with every hour. Everyone adopts a refrain like the chorus of a campfire song - someone’s _the storm ain’t let up yet,_ followed by another with _at least no one’s following us through it_. Between arguing with Dutch over plans and O’Driscolls and John’s absence and trying to parse whatever it was that happened on the ferry, Hosea listens to Abigail worry over John more in two days than she has in as many years.

“Ask Arthur to go after him next time you see him,” Hosea finally tells Abigail. He knows better than to let his own fear show through, too familiar with the way it closes her up.

“He won’t. You know how it’s been with them as well as I do. Better, probably.”

“I can assure you Arthur is fretting as much as any of us,” Hosea assures her, not mentioning that if Arthur won’t do it for her, he would do it because Dutch has scarcely said a word about John at all.

“You ask him,” Abigail pleads. And as if summoned, Arthur enters the building with a gust of cold air, and Abigail gets up on her own to ask him. Arthur, as Abigail had predicted, fusses about it stubbornly, but leaves with Javier at Hosea’s own firm suggestion.

Abigail comes to sit again, the new fear of Arthur and Javier returning empty-handed settling in between her and Hosea in the cold.

Abigail was right for her concern, as Arthur and Javier haul John into Colter, bloodied and torn nearly to ribbons. Wolves, John tiredly tells them, and Hosea shoves a bottle of rum into his hand as if it will be enough to dull the pain. Arthur stands over Hosea’s shoulder as he and Miss Grimshaw clean and stitch John’s face and side as best they can. Through his exhaustion and his pain, John looks up at Hosea as if desperate to tell him something dire, but he never speaks. When they finish, Hosea pushes Arthur out the door into the cold with him.

The storm is letting up some, and the snow falls more reluctantly from a sky that looks bluer than it had hours before.

“He doesn’t need you in there acting like a bastard,” Hosea says.

“I wasn’t,” Arthur insists.

“Not yet you weren’t.”

“Hosea, did you know Dutch shot a girl on that ferry?” Arthur asks. Hosea sighs.

“John told me on the way up here. What else do you know?”

“Javier said it was bad. And John said when he got shot Dutch nearly left him behind but for Sean. It ain’t like him, Hosea.”

“Neither is pulling a job without you or me,” Hosea says. Arthur sighs and turns to wade through the snow back to the cabin.

\---

Before Hosea can stop him, Dutch whirls off with the men to raid Colm O’Driscoll’s camp some ways down the mountain. They’ll have to leave soon now, with Colm knowing they must be nearby. They lost the ability to hold off Colm and his men long ago, when Colm came up with a proper gang and Dutch had caught himself up in the idea of a family before an army.

Hosea frets, and tends to John, and scans the same page of his book for hours.

Dutch comes back without Arthur, quickly shushing Hosea and his worries to say that Arthur went after some runaway O’Driscoll and would be back soon enough. Hosea worries still. Dutch talks endlessly about a map and a plan for a train robbery. Hosea paces back and forth from the window waiting for Arthur to return. He finally rides in with some poor, frozen man tied on the back of his horse.

“We ain’t got time for hostages,” Hosea tells Dutch as Arthur hauls the man into the stable. Dutch waves him off, rolled-up map tucked under his arm as he retreats to the cabin. Hosea considers slipping into the stable to free the O’Driscoll and spare him from whatever fate he may find among them. He follows Dutch’s footprints to the cabin instead.

Dutch is winding himself up for train-robbing. Hosea knows the routines of his habits before a job all too well - the pacing, the chattering, the sleeplessness. Hosea hardly sleeps, spending the night watching Dutch pace through the small cabin and stoke the fire until it goes out and then starting it again. Hosea’s own anxieties keep him from resting as well - thinking endlessly of any of the unimaginable consequences of robbing one of the most powerful men in the country.

The sun rises and Hosea tries again to discourage Dutch from doing what Hosea considers unthinkable.

“I got to, Hosea,” Dutch says for the hundredth time, fixing his hair in Molly’s compact mirror. “What else can we do?”

“We’ll have even less of a choice once you get that kind of attention on us,” Hosea says. The men are mounting up outside, shouting to each other as they ready their guns and their horses.

“We ain’t got a choice now,” Dutch says, and he turns to go out the door.

“Dutch,” Hosea calls after him.

The door swings shut and Hosea drops his head to his hands. Dutch has always fussed and fought him when his mind is set on something, but never has he ignored Hosea so thoroughly. Hosea had shrugged and let him chase after the ferry job, knowing it was reckless, knowing it felt wrong, and his resignation left them with two - maybe more - of their own dead, and John shot, and all of them run up a mountain in a blizzard.

Hosea coughs, and his chest stings and rattles. He gets up from his chair with his heart pounding in his ears, pushing open the door to find Dutch calling for the men. The snow has finally stopped and the sun is eerily bright through the clouds.

“Dutch!” Hosea calls, his voice sounding harsh against the snow. It surprises Dutch enough to stop him, and his freezing brings the other men to a halt behind him.

“What now, Hosea?” Dutch asks, a twinge of fear in his voice, and Hosea knows that only he can hear it.

“You go ahead and rob that train,” Hosea says, lowering his voice, and Dutch steels himself, anger twitching in his face, “I’m sticking to the plan. _Your_ plan.”

Dutch stares at him for a long moment, even his breathing frozen. Arthur watches them from where he stands at his horse just behind Dutch’s shoulder. He looks to Hosea with terror in his face, and to Dutch with a guarded desperation. Hosea hates to do it to him.

“What the hell are you talking about, Hosea? You’re gonna go and take your chances in all this? Alone?” Dutch gestures around them to the snow, rising to their knees.

“It would still be easier than the hell you’re asking to be brought down on us. Wasn’t all that in Blackwater enough? Why are you so set on damning us all?”

Dutch exhales, a glittering puff of steam in the thin mountain air. His eyes are a new sort of frantic now, his chest rising and falling under the bulk of his coat.

“Hosea,” Dutch says cautiously, quietly, and Hosea is relieved to see the very look in Dutch’s eyes that Hosea has always tried to fend off. “You ain’t leaving.”

“We ain’t got room for this kind of recklessness,” Hosea says. “Cornwall’s bigger than us. Hell, he’s bigger than most of this damn country. Haven’t we lost enough?”

“It really don’t sound like a good idea, Dutch,” Arthur says softly. Dutch turns to him.

“Not now, Arthur. I don’t need this from you, too,” Dutch snaps, but his voice is wavering. He turns back to Hosea. “You wouldn’t _leave_.”

“Have I ever given you reason to doubt me before?” Hosea asks, and he feels rotten for saying it, and worse for his sincerity.

Dutch looks around, pursing his lips, and throws down his reins with a snap that makes the Count stomp his hooves in the snow.

“Then what do you suggest we do, Hosea?” Dutch asks, his voice shaking.

Hosea freezes. Dutch’s face flashes with smugness and fear at once.

“Make a new plan.”

“With what money?”

“We’ll think of something. That’s what we do best, Dutch. But this?” Hosea gestures to the map rolled in Dutch’s hands, to the others still waiting expectantly but now talking amongst themselves. “This ain’t thinking.”

Dutch takes off his hat and sighs, smoothing a hand over his hair.

“Fine,” Dutch says. He looks over Hosea’s shoulder. “Gentlemen! Job’s off, old _Hosea_ says it’s too risky. Go rest up, I’ll need you again soon.”

They shrug and linger for a moment, then bumble off in their respective directions. Micah is the last to go, watching Dutch with a curious look that Hosea wants to strike from his face.

Hosea waits for Dutch to start walking back to the cabin himself. As Dutch turns away, Hosea dares to look to Arthur, who gives him a look of confused relief. Hosea nods for him to go and Arthur turns and makes his way toward the stable. Hosea follows Dutch to the cabin.

Dutch has thrown himself down on his cot, and Hosea elects to let him rest, or at the very least to let him think. Hosea lowers himself into one of the creaking chairs.

\---

Dutch stumbles tiredly into the main room of the cabin, crouching in front of the fireplace on knees stiff from the cold, pushing another wet log onto the fire. Hosea stirs from a surely uncomfortable sleep slouched in a chair. Dutch wishes he would pull the cot closer to the fire, but Hosea had insisted that it was not necessary.

If it were different, if it were not for Molly - and that Hosea simply won’t have him these days - Dutch would have dragged Hosea into a cot with him to keep him warm. But if things were still that way, Dutch supposes, they wouldn’t be snowed into a crumbling mining town in the mountains.

Hosea straightens up and coughs. Dutch tells himself again that Hosea wouldn’t leave, though he knows better. But Hosea has been stupid before, and - ever worse - Hosea has been right before, when Dutch has been wrong. 

“How are you feeling?” Dutch asks, breaking the silence as he knows he should. He settles into the other chair. Night has fallen outside, and only Hosea glows in the light of the fire.

“As fine as I can, given everything.”

Dutch sighs and rests his elbows on his knees.

“I know that you wanna die, Hosea. It ain’t like you keep it a secret.”

“That’s what makes us different,” Hosea stretches out his legs in front of the fire. “I ain’t dragging anyone else into my - how did you put it so nicely earlier? My death wish?"

Dutch looks up at him, stares into his eyes that flicker in the firelight. Dutch had accepted that he would lose Hosea from the moment that Dutch had sworn himself to him. That was what it had meant, after all - tying lives together is an acceptance of facing the inevitable together. So Dutch threw himself into his love with the idea that a gunshot or a horse's kick or a fever or a rope could end it tomorrow - and so tomorrow felt nearer and more dreadful with each day that it never came.

“What is it you suggest we do?” Dutch asks. “Keeping in mind that we ain't got no _money_.“

“I don’t know,” Hosea says, “I guess we wait another day or two while the weather breaks, then we head east. Where, I don’t know. But we’re already going this way and we might as well keep on going.”

“Back into civilization,” Dutch scowls.

“And who would think to look for us there? If we can truly lie low like you keep saying. Get some land, make our peace with ourselves.”

“Hosea.”

“I don’t care where we go, Dutch. But I know a place down and east of here where we can get back on our feet and decide what to do. I mean it, Dutch. I can't do this no more."

"I know, my friend," Dutch says, surprised by the hollowness of his own words. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want apologies. Right your wrongs. Or try to, at the very least, so I can right my own."

The wind outside fills the silence. Dutch wants to vomit.

"You weren't really gonna leave," Dutch says softly and flatly, though the question is clear.

"I'm tired, Dutch,” Hosea says, as if it’s an answer.

“I know. Me, too.”

\---

Spring still blooming on the eastern side of the mountains is a welcome, dreamlike surprise. In a different time, Horseshoe Overlook would have been a wonderfully profitable location. The Heartlands are still unruly enough to leave room for opportunity, and the landscape is a reward in itself. Dutch sends everyone off with instructions to make money and not make a scene until he comes up with a new plan. Hosea feels sorry for his frustration that everyone has remained so trusting and true.

Micah’s presence festers in camp like a saddle sore. Hosea watches him carefully, tells the others not to let him out of their sight. Mac and Davey, in all their cocky posturing, excelled at keeping Micah in check, and without them his leering has only become more vile. Miraculously he keeps away from Dutch, as if recognizing the thin ice he walks on under the watchful gazes of the camp.

As Dutch and Arthur untether Kieran the woeful O’Driscoll, Hosea prepares himself to convince Dutch not to go after Colm O’Driscoll again under Kieran’s guidance. He recites it silently to himself, but when he finally calls out to Dutch to say it, he finds himself surprised that Dutch listens at his first request. Kieran takes to skittering nervously around camp, desperately avoiding the men save for Arthur and Charles. Hosea quietly pleads with the others not to antagonize him, that clearly he means no harm to anyone, and finally Arthur takes to - amid his continued pestering of the man - making sure that Kieran is never intimidated into missing a meal.

Hosea sees Dutch skirt around him but watch him constantly like a nervous animal. Hosea pretends not to see Dutch’s avoidance or the panic in his eyes whenever Hosea approaches him.

When word comes back that Sean is alive and in need of rescuing, Hosea regrets the caution he feels about going back to retrieve him.

“How much of a risk, do you think?” Hosea quietly asks Arthur.

“With Charles and Javier? It’ll be easy,” Arthur says.

“If it’s not…” Hosea trails off. Arthur sighs.

“I know, Hosea. We will. But John keeps on saying it would’ve been far worse on that ferry if Sean hadn’t been there.”

“Take care, Arthur.”

“I always do.”

Hosea worries until Arthur and the others come back with Sean in tow, maniacal in his fatigue and excitement. Sean leaps headfirst into spinning some story about all he’s seen, throwing his arm around Arthur’s neck and kissing him dramatically on the cheek in thanks. After two tired weeks, the camp feels alive again and dives into hearty celebration. Hosea retires to watch the festivity from afar.

Dutch approaches him, silently looking for permission to sit, and Hosea holds his eyes long enough for Dutch to lower himself into a chair. His careful pleasantries put an ache in Hosea’s chest, and Dutch finally covers Hosea’s hand with his own. The formality gives way to familiar reminiscing, and Dutch’s eyes look clear and present, and their circumstances suddenly fall away. It could be any year and any place as they laugh together.

“We did it, Hosea,” Dutch says softly. They have, Hosea thinks, whatever it may be, he isn’t quite sure. They’ve lived longer than either of them rightfully should have, and they did it together - together they have far more than what most men can claim. Hosea turns his palm upward under Dutch’s hand.

\---

A shadow falls over Abigail’s sewing and she looks up to find Molly standing over her, flexing her fingers nervously.

“Sorry, Abigail,” Molly starts hesitantly, and Abigail suddenly regrets whatever harsh expression she must have given.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Abigail says, resting her hands in her lap expectantly. Molly’s face is slightly swollen from crying. 

“I was just wondering if I could…do you need some help?”

Abigail stares at her for a moment in surprise and quickly feels rude for it. It is far from the first time that Molly has come to her for something - Abigail being the closest to Molly in some incomprehensible standing - but it is the first time that Molly has ever offered to help with something. She blinks and shakes her head.

“Well, sure, Miss O’Shea. We could always use some help,” Abigail says. She holds back a collection of snide comments, some her own and some rehearsed. She gestures to the crate next to her and Molly sits down, still tense with nerves. Abigail offers her a shirt - she’s not sure whose, probably Sean’s - and a paper of needles and a spool of thread.

“Thank you,” Molly says softly. Abigail still looks at her, puzzled. “And just Molly is fine.”

“Thank you, Molly,” Abigail says.

Molly nods and sets to threading a needle. Abigail watches her stitch, the neat stitches of someone accustomed to crafting rather than utility. But mended seams are mended seams, and Abigail knows better than to complain about help - especially when it comes from someone other than Tilly for a change.

Abigail glances up at Molly between stitches, watching her face and eyes flutter slightly as she sews. Abigail has never looked closely at her - as is common with anyone who is beautiful at a glance - and she finds herself appreciating the small lines in the softness of her face and the subtleties of her expressions.

“Are things alright, Molly?” Abigail dares to ask.

“Oh, you know. The same as always with him.”

“Nobody’s making you keep bothering with him, my dear,” Abigail says. Molly frowns, but there is no weepy outburst as is typical of these conversations. As far as she knows, Abigail is the only one to say such things to Molly directly.

“I know,” Molly says. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

“I understand,” Abigail says, and she expects Molly to argue, but she only sighs and minds her sewing.

\---

Camp is quiet in the early evening light, the air cool with springtime dampness. Summer feels far away as Hosea’s lungs burn, low and constant like coals on a stubborn fire. Everyone has retired for the night or gone into Valentine to drink. Hosea sits at the cliff’s edge, looking over the valley as the world darkens and the stars begin to dot the sky.

Dutch’s familiar footsteps come up behind Hosea, and Dutch’s warm hand gently falls on his shoulder and quickly flits away, remembering itself. Hosea feels its absence like a cold draft.

“Hey, Dutch,” Hosea says.

“I’m thinking on a plan,” Dutch says.

“Don’t go talking too much about it yet,” Hosea says. Dutch stiffens where he stands, his hands on his hips.

“What do you want from me, Hosea? You say we need a plan, you don’t want me to make one. Who’s really holding us back here, friend?”

"We was set up in Blackwater, Dutch. Best we not make any plans until we make sense of that. But I can't help until somebody tells me what went down on that ferry."

Dutch is silent for a long moment, his eyes flickering as he recalls something unknown to Hosea.

"John," Dutch says softly, mournfully.

"What?"

"John," Dutch says. "He fell behind somewhere when the shooting got bad, caught up with us later on the way out."

For the first time since they were young and only good-spirited, Hosea wants to strike him.

" _John_ was with us telling you _not_ to do it at all, you god damned miserable fool," Hosea snaps. Dutch stares at him, looking as if Hosea did strike him after all. “He was _shot_. We both know he ain't got the brains to set us up if he wanted to.”

Dutch looks away, his dark eyes wide and frightened. He works his jaw and sighs.

“Hosea,” Dutch says, warbling on the vowels. Hosea stands up.

“Think, Dutch, if you still can. And use your damn heart.”

“Hosea…”

“Only one person in this camp was as dead set on that ferry job as you, and you know damn well who it was,” Hosea says. “And if you don’t get rid of him, we ain’t going nowhere with any peace of mind.”

“Micah is the only - “

“I don’t wanna hear it,” Hosea says sharply. Dutch looks lost and unrecognizable in his fright. Hosea turns to go, his stomach icy and twisting.

\---

Molly’s legs are cold, and she can feel Dutch’s warmth where he sits at the edge of the cot reading. He hasn’t turned a page in some time, and Molly watches his eyes move over the page with an empty look. She imagines a different person would reach for him were they in her position. Some time ago that’s just what she would have done - reach for him, ask him what was troubling him, and he would touch her instead of telling her much of anything, but it would smooth his brow.

Abigail told her something once, some time ago, when she had caught Molly fretting. _Don’t make a fool of yourself_ , Abigail had said, and it had stung, but everyone already thinks her enough of a fool, and they have from the start.

“Why do you even bother with me?” Molly asks, and Dutch looks up from his book with a measure of disgust.

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you bother?” Molly asks.

“What ever do you mean?”

_He don’t love you. Not in the way you wanna be loved_ , Abigail’s voice comes back to Molly again. Had he ever loved her at all? She has seen Dutch love - and Hosea is never met with the vitriol Dutch throws at her, even in all their fighting and friction Molly has never seen Hosea face the apathy in which she flounders.

“I know you don’t love me,” Molly says, and the steadiness in her voice surprises them both. Dutch looks up from his book, unsure of how to respond to an accusation that for once is not frantic.

“You don’t know that,” Dutch says coolly, his face becoming pale enough for Molly to wonder if maybe he does love her after all, if she’s somehow hurt him by saying such a thing.

_You don’t strike me an idiot_ , Abigail’s voice echoes again, one of the only voices to have been kind to her since Molly found herself here - and even at that, just barely, but Abigail is kind in strange ways.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore, Dutch,” Molly says. Dutch’s swallows hard and he reaches out for her, and she sits up. He looks surprised, and she expects him to raise his voice, but he doesn’t. “I love you, but I’m not what you want, and I can’t change you or me.”

“Well, don’t let me waste any more of your _time_ , Miss O’Shea,” Dutch sneers. He stands up quickly and Molly flinches, and he holds open the tent flap. She freezes and watches him, but he does not look at her. She quickly collects her things - and realizes she has decidedly few of them - and steps out of his tent into the cool night. The flap falls shut behind her and she hears the cot creak heavily.

Molly is colder than she expects, and surprised that she does not cry.

“Molly?”

Molly turns to see Abigail standing at the cook fire. She nods her invitation for Molly to join her, and Molly does.

“You heard all that?” Molly asks.

“Some of it. I was walking by.”

“Oh.”

“We got blankets, if you need. Lord knows there’s enough room for you in our tent,” Abigail says, and Molly hears the frustration that Abigail has always tried to tell her they share.

“That would be nice,” Molly says, and Abigail looks at her with a friendly sort of pity that Molly is surprised to welcome.

\---

John shoves Arthur awake, baiting him into the morning with a promise of work. He tries to tell Arthur about some sheep they can rustle, and Arthur grumbles about it as he drinks his coffee, but still pours a second cup. Still listening, Arthur is as good as sold on it.

“You sure you’re good for it, Marston?” Arthur asks.

“If I don’t get working again I’m gonna get stuck like this,” John says.

“Where was all that when you was younger and I was doing all the work?”

“Shut up. Are you helping me or not?”

“I’m helping you.”

They ride out, and the work is easy enough even with Arthur complaining and offering him advice John didn’t ask for. He expected it when he invited Arthur on the job, because Arthur imparts his wisdom whenever John is the only one around to hear it. The men at the auction house fuss over the origins of the herd they bring in, but the money is decent, and John is happy to be moving again, even if his body aches with the movement of his horse.

Riding back to camp, Arthur starts talking about what he has overheard of Dutch’s latest plans. John’s heart feels as if it’s running out of his chest. Dutch’s plans have only been trouble for too long now, and hearing Arthur fall for it again John wants to push Arthur from his saddle.

“Dutch is making excuses,” John tells Arthur as they ride back from Valentine. “Money this and California that. He don’t wanna settle down, or whatever it is he keeps trying to sell.”

“Dutch is…trying to do what’s best for everyone,” Arthur says.

“Quit covering for him, Arthur,” John snaps. “You heard Hosea saying we got enough money before. And look what happened.”

“How come you ain’t trusted Dutch once since you got back from your little jaunt through the country?”

“World seems different once you get away from all that. From him,” John says. He had spent a year on his own, sometimes with a few other men, getting by well enough. The world was hardly as perilous as Dutch had made it out to be - people were kind, honest work was simple. Things had been easy, almost pleasant, but John had been lonely and felt lost in a foreign world, and he had come to even miss Abigail and Jack, and so he returned. And under all his relief Dutch had been disappointed - because, John could only assume, John had caught on to some worldly secret that Dutch had long ago forgotten.

“I know. And you still came running back.”

“If there’s one thing Dutch is right about, it’s family,” John says.

“I know.”

“But he’s still a fool about it, even if he’s right. I know he was ready to leave me on that mountain just like he was ready to leave me on that ferry.”

Arthur is silent for a long moment. John feels himself thrumming with anger.

“I know.”

John realizes how tired he has become of hearing truths he already knows.

“I’m as much a fool as Dutch for staying.”

“I ain’t gonna tell you to stay, Marston.”

“You know Hosea’s been telling me to go? To take Abigail and Jack and go?”

“No, I didn’t. But Hosea, he’s…you know how he is.”

“Maybe I should take Abigail and leave. You seen her with Molly lately? God only knows what lofty ideas she’s getting in her head from that woman.”

“Oh, Molly ain’t so bad, she’s just…”

“I know, I know. All I gotta worry about is Molly O’Shea being better company than me.”

“Well, that ain’t hard.”

John rolls his eyes and Arthur laughs.

“Just don’t leave too soon, Marston.”

John doesn’t answer, wondering where he found the strength to leave before.

\---

The stew that Molly slowly spoons into her mouth is cold and entirely underwhelming. There was a time that she had enjoyed it, the small thrills and treats of a life more simple than what she had known. Now it makes her long for home and all its comforts, wherever and whatever those may be.

It embarrasses her to eat food gone cold, in the dark once everyone has retired to bed or to the fire, but she feels like something sinful and scorned trying to join the others for meals or be seen in camp at all. She wishes she knew how to leave. Instead, she'll eat alone, and then fall into a restless and still-hungry sleep beside Abigail, who cares for her enough not to fuss over her.

“Well, if it isn’t Miss Molly O’Shea,” a voice creeps up behind her. Micah leans against the edge of the table next to her. “How are you this evening?”

“Don’t know why that concerns you,” Molly says shortly, and returns to her stew. Micah has always eyed her with some sort of twisted lust and jealousy - that much she was sure was more than just her nerves getting the best of her.

“You know me. I like to make sure everyone’s doing well. Especially a woman so newly…neglected as you.”

“I’m not neglected,” Molly says. Micah is too close to her, watching her with his strange scavenging eyes. He reaches out to touch her face and she swats him away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I know it’s been a while - “ Micah reaches for her again, gripping her arm.

“I said, don’t touch me,” Molly says, loudly now, though no one comes to her aid. Her heart pounds in her ears, remembering how shamelessly far Micah had taken things with Jenny, who had been such a fighter.

“Leave her alone, Micah,” Abigail’s voice comes firmly through the dark.

“Good to see you, Abigail,” Micah sneers. Molly hears the click of a gun cocking. Micah turns to stare at her in the hazy darkness and Molly steps away. Molly sees Abigail now just out of the darkness, holding a rifle confidently. Still, no one seems to stir. “Oh, you ain’t gonna use that,” Micah says, but his doubt is clear as he reaches for his own pistol. He won’t shoot Abigail, and all three of them know it - Micah can do worse with the threat of a gun than a bullet itself.

“Have you gone stupid or have you just given up?” Abigail asks. Micah draws his gun, and Molly sees surprise flash across Abigail’s face, and feels a flash of cold fear that Micah saw it as well.

With a bang Micah falls to the ground, sputtering and collapsing without ceremony. Molly leaps back, and Abigail is at her side, looking around in confusion - she hadn’t fired the gun still in her hands. The camp is clambering to life now, a cacophony of raised voices and readying guns.

“Are you girls okay?” Miss Grimshaw calls, coming to stand over Micah’s body with her rifle on her toe.

“We’re just fine,” Abigail answers.

“Good. Lucky somebody had the chance to kill him without anybody getting hurt first. For once.”

Molly stands stunned, and Abigail holds onto her arm tightly. Miss Grimshaw is relaying what happened with increasing volume as more voices inquire. Sean’s voice comes raised above them all, calling for Abigail, Jack balanced on his hip sleep-bleary and frightened. Abigail’s hand disappears from Molly’s arm as Sean deposits Jack into Abigail’s arms, but Abigail leans her shoulder into Molly’s still.

Dutch’s voice comes booming above the rest and Molly flinches, and Miss Grimshaw goes to meet him as he stalks over to the scene. Hosea appears at his side and listens to Miss Grimshaw, then comes to speak quietly to Abigail.

Molly finds herself alone in the midst of it all and removes herself from Abigail’s side, retiring to the edge of camp to sit and watch the shadows alone, her shoulders quaking.

\---

Susan calls for some of the men to take Micah’s body out of camp. Lenny leaps at the chance, chattering to Charles joyously about burying him as they hoist his bleeding body up. The camp winds down again, everyone returning to their places or lingering around the fire. No one will sleep again tonight. Karen starts the coffee and Pearson waits, tired but ready, to defend his station against hungry mouths.

"I told the both of you that if he touched one of the girls again I would kill him," Susan says. Arthur nods his confirmation - he’s heard her say it enough times. “Hosea and Arthur weren’t gonna do it,” Susan sees Hosea resist a sigh. “How long were you all gonna let it go on? Until he’d had his way with all of us like he did Jenny?”

“Susan…” Dutch starts, an old refrain. She shakes her head. Lucky for her, she thinks, Dutch has never thought she could do any wrong, and amid everything else he can hardly be flustered over what he should have known was Micah’s inevitable fall.

“No,” Susan says shortly. “Miss Roberts is the only other one in this camp with the sense to do it.”

“Miss Roberts?” Dutch and Hosea ask together.

“Miss Roberts has more gall in her than any of the three of you. He had his hands on Miss O’Shea and Miss Roberts was ready for it. Lord knows she has enough to worry about without blood on her hands. You can’t say I should have stood by - ”

“There are other ways…” Dutch trails off, looking overwhelmed as he so often does now. For a moment she misses the quick-on-his-feet gleam in his eyes that had first won her over.

“Thank you, Miss Grimshaw,” Hosea says with a nearly comical politeness, trying to turn Dutch away from it all. Dutch shakes him off and stalks away

“You owe me, Mister Matthews. One of you should have done that _long_ ago.”

“You’re right,” Hosea says. Arthur nods again in agreement. “I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

\---

The camp is cautiously lively as the sun rises on Micah’s death. It would be nearly celebratory, if not for the questioning eyes falling on Dutch at every turn. If he left - disappeared into the woods, gone into town - they would surely celebrate outright. It tempts him, but to leave would be to admit to the embarrassment roiling in his stomach.

Arthur and Hosea had warned him that Micah would only bring trouble. How inept could he be, then, to have let it go so far and have remained unaware until Micah was already dead on the ground? Dutch stays in his tent, waiting to be told that he’s been deposed, that the others are leaving.

Only Hosea comes rapping at the tentpole.

“You okay?” Hosea asks. Dutch nods.

“You were right,” Dutch says.

“I know, but that ain’t what I wanna hear right now.”

“What do you want, then?”

“I want you to do what you do best and make a plan,” Hosea says.

“I don’t know…” Dutch starts, but he finds himself unsure of what to say.

“I do. I’ll do it with you. But we gotta do something. We finally have a chance, nobody’s gonna follow us, or rat us out, or tell a soul where we’re going.”ed

“Tomorrow, Hosea. I ain’t even slept.”

“Sure,” Hosea says. He stands over Dutch as if he has something else to offer, but he turns to leave, coughing as he goes. Dutch grimaces, pushing down thoughts of some lonely future.

\---

Dutch unfolds his map, spreading the country across the table. Long ago, when he had seen less of the country, and when examining it had preceded some great adventure and not flight from disaster, the sight of the map before him filled him with a thrill that tightened his knees and pointed him toward the road. He cannot remember a time it ever felt so small.

“We’ve gone and run out of country, Hosea,” Dutch says. Hosea stands next to him, his hands on his hips, looking down at the map with him. For all the familiarity of the scene, the solace Dutch takes in it feels forbidden.

“The Dutch I know wouldn’t say such a thing,” Hosea says simply. He absently taps at Valentine on the map, and Dutch accepts that their work has begun. Dutch sits down, puts his head in his hands, staring across the map. They’ve crossed it all now.

“We gotta head back east. We need…” Dutch sighs and rubs his hands over his face. He feels Hosea’s hand lightly on his arm for a moment. “We need a place far from here. Remote, probably.”

“Arthur keeps saying Canada.”

“That sounds cold,” Dutch says. He looks up at Hosea, thinking of all the cold nights Hosea has spent coughing with his head under his blankets.

“Everywhere’s cold,” Hosea says. “Luckily I won’t have long to suffer.”

“Quit talking like that, Hosea,” Dutch groans. He wonders when exactly their plans shifted from settling down somewhere to live to settling down somewhere for Hosea to die. The same time that the country got so small, surely.

“What about here?” Hosea ignores Dutch’s complaint and points vaguely to the middle of the country. “Sure there’s plenty of land out here still.”

“No,” Dutch rubs his eyes. “Too many people passing through that country. Hell, we were the ones passing through, you know how it is out there.”

He feels Hosea lean his hip against his shoulder. He looks up, sees Hosea’s tired face looking at him with a gentle concern that Dutch has seen too many times now, in Wyoming, in California, in Blackwater. Dutch sits back and drops his hands to his lap.

“I ain’t being paranoid, Hosea,” Dutch says. Whenever they had found any land, Dutch had seen eyes on them, and Hosea had looked at him with a peculiar sadness each time. “Not without reason, at least.”

“I know. You’re right. The last thing we need is strangers passing by.”

Dutch watches for some sign of Hosea only humoring him, and he finds none. Hosea turns back to the map.

“There ain’t any part of this country folks ain’t passing through these days,” Dutch says.

Hosea is looking over the map again. Dutch stares at it blankly. Hosea sighs and taps at the paper again.

“Nobody’s gonna just pass through a peninsula,” Hosea says. Dutch brings himself back to look at where Hosea’s finger rests on the map. 

“You remember Michigan. We had a lot of fun in Detroit.”

And they had, because it was the only thing to do in a place full of horse racing and moonshining and well-guarded extravagance. They had left feeling like they’d robbed the city dry and offered a fair enough helping hand to the state’s common folk. But Hosea had gone to sleep each night with a cough like the swampy land and muddy roads were seeping into his lungs.

“Sure. And I remember you being sick there,” Dutch says. Hoses sighs.

“I’ll be sick anywhere. I was sick in California, too,” Hosea says, and he squeezes Dutch’s arm. “I read the papers. Sure, it’s civilized, but only in the cities. There’s still some wilds left there in between the towns and lumber country. Hell, there are pirates on the lakes, they say.”

“Nobody’d expect us,” Dutch says softly.

“And we won’t be doing nothing to draw attention to ourselves. Just a family or two looking for some reprieve from the strains of civilization in our retirement. And with all the business still going on out here with Colm and bounty hunters and Pinkertons and so on…they’ll forget us soon enough, or better yet presume us dead. We get a few rumors in the ears of the right bounty hunters, I reckon we’d be alright.”

Dutch looks at the map and rubs his temples. Hosea claps him on the shoulder.

“How about it, Dutch?” Hosea asks.

“I need to think.”

“Sure,” Hosea says. He pats him on the shoulder again and leaves Dutch to study the map alone.

\---

Hosea is giddy in a way that Arthur has not seen him since before Blackwater. If one stagecoach robbery going smoothly is enough to raise his spirits, there may be hope after all for the rest of them. The sky is beginning to pale with the dawn and Hosea sits contentedly in his saddle, seemingly unburdened by any of the things he usually tries to withhold. Arthur hates to intrude on it, like throwing a rock onto a smooth pool of water.

“You think Dutch means it this time?” Arthur asks. Hosea is unbothered by the question.

“I do,” Hosea says. “I reckon he’s gone and gotten himself scared enough. I think this is our chance.”

“I hope so,” Arthur says. Hosea has been slow to trust Dutch for some time now, and the careful ease with which he does now reminds Arthur of a Hosea from years ago.

“I just ain’t sure how to tell him some folks will have to go their separate ways,” Hosea says, suddenly somber but not in the sullen way Arthur has grown used to. “It would be better for us all if we all split up. But…”

“He wouldn’t make it alone,” Arthur finishes. Hosea nods.

“I ain’t saying you need to stick around. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t - “

“Hosea - “ 

“ - but I know you - “

“I ain’t gonna leave you with Dutch. It would - “

“Ruin him. I know,” Hosea sighs. Arthur thinks of Hosea’s ailing body, and Dutch being left alone without anyone to mind him. As if he said it aloud, Hosea adds, “I ain’t putting this on you, you know that, but I’d feel better knowing Dutch ain’t alone once I’m gone.”

“I know, Hosea,” Arthur says, and he sees Hosea’s face fall before he looks away again. “John said you was telling him to leave.”

“All of us should. But some things go deeper than that.”

“I reckon there ain’t much else for me to do, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t speak so soon,” Hosea says. “Tilly tells me you’ve been seeing Mary again.”

“She tells you everything, don’t she?” Arthur groans. He wonders often if things would have been better between him and Mary had the gang been less involved.

“Mm, only when she’s worried.”

“I helped Mary with that brother of hers. I ain’t doing nothing with her, not again. It ain’t worth the trouble.”

“I understand,” Hosea says, and Arthur knows too well that he does.

\---

Dutch thinks more than he sleeps, and Hosea pesters him and - Dutch suspects - sets Arthur to pestering him as well. The decision is made, more or less - he knew he had chosen a path the moment he had delayed his decision, Hosea knows it just as well. Still, he deliberates, possibilities running through his head relentlessly.

He tries not to look at the others in camp, feeling frantic with embarrassment. He’s already cost them enough, and they ought to leave, he thinks, or he ought to leave himself. He hates to think that he has them all fooled, just as much as he hates to think of them realizing his ineptitude - though surely they’ve seen it raw and bare by now.

The sky is stretched out taut and cloudless over the country rolling between Horseshoe Overlook and the mountains in the distance. Dutch stands at the edge of the cliff and challenges the rocky ground to crumble under his feet. His knees seem to weaken at the thought, though the challenge mingles with a plea.

He hears Hosea come up behind him, the long-familiar rhythm of his footsteps now punctuated with a less-familiar jerking hitch in his step, and he stops a few paces away. Dutch glances over his shoulder and steps back to stand next to him. They watch the wind blow through the trees below, and when the valley stills Hosea gently elbows Dutch.

“You need to make a decision, Dutch,” Hosea says. “Or I will, and then you’ll have that to hate me for.”

“I can make a decision just fine, Hosea,” Dutch snaps, and then sighs. “And I wouldn’t dare hate you for nothing, old friend.”

Hosea’s face betrays a retort that he does not voice, and Dutch feels a flare of frustration in his chest imagining what it must be. Hosea taps him lightly and knowingly on the arm and Dutch huffs.

“The last thing I need is you treating me like I ain’t capable,” Dutch says stiffly.

“I ain’t. But I know when you need some pushing.”

Dutch crosses his arms and watches the horizon. Why should he make another move, he thinks, if the others have no reason to trust him?

“I was thinking we best not tell the others where we’re headed until we know who’s going with us,” Hosea says.

“What do you mean?”

“You know we ain’t all gonna make it together, Dutch,” Hosea says. And Dutch does know, and it feels like a rotten trick that Hosea should remind him of such things. He can see in Hosea’s eyes that it feels the same for him. Dutch is aware again of the cliff's edge.

“I know.”

“It’s what’s best for them. I know that’s…hard for you to see these days - “ 

“Hosea.”

“ - But I’m here to _remind you_ of our _priorities_. You’ll still have me, and if we play our cards right we’ll have both the boys - “

“ _Quit_ , Hosea!” Dutch snaps. Hosea meets Dutch’s eyes with a fearlessness that unnerves him. “You ain’t helping nothing. You think I like being reminded that we’re doing all this because _you’re_ fixing to die? Damn it, Hosea, there was a time when you _trusted_ me.”

“Sure. When you could be trusted,” Hosea says. Dutch prays for the rocks to give way under his feet. What does any of it matter, if Hosea will be dead within the half-decade. But there are things owed to people who love you, Dutch thinks, and and he has handled his debt poorly.

“I’m trying, Hosea,” Dutch says. Hosea shrugs and nods.

“So am I.”

The cliff's edge feels ever closer.

\---

On a clear morning, Arthur watches as Dutch paces through camp and finally musters himself to call everyone to the fire. They come to listen, in various states of dress, holding their coffees and breakfasts. With their eyes on him, Dutch suddenly appears confident again, as if all he needed to remember himself was to have the others gather around him, even if some of them lacked the confidence in their eyes.

“Folks, we all know we’ve been through some hell these last few months,” Dutch starts, and already Arthur cocks his head at the uncharacteristic humility in his voice. "And we're all family here and…this is hard for me to say...Hosea says - and I am inclined to agree - that we gotta split ourselves up if we want out of this mess, once and for all. I got a plan for folks who are gonna stay with me, but it can't be all of us. Me and Hosea will go...and some of you can follow, but we ain't all gonna make it like this."

A few murmurs start up, a few faces realizing silently where they fit. Dutch carries on, talking about the way of the world and how to best keep folks safe. Arthur doesn't quite listen, studying Hosea's tired and expressionless face as Dutch speaks.

"Now, I ain't gonna force anyone out," Dutch says, voice wavering, "but some of us have got to go our separate ways here. It's..." Dutch pauses, swallows, "it's the only way I can be sure we're safe. I don't wanna part with any of you...but that's what we have to do to protect what we love in hard times.“

It's Hosea talking through him, Arthur knows it. But Arthur knows - better than even Dutch or Hosea know, maybe - that Hosea often knows what Dutch wants more than Dutch himself does.

When no one speaks, Dutch rambles some more. Arthur watches the circle of thoughtful faces. He'll hate to see some of them go, and guesses silently at who will make their departure.

“I’m sorry that it’s come to this,” Dutch confesses, with a sincerity that Arthur has only ever heard Dutch give to Hosea.

When Dutch finishes speaking, Arthur lingers to listen as Hosea and Dutch retire to Dutch's tent, talking quietly. Dutch is hardly recognizable in his weariness. Behind him, the women talk quietly together about where they could go - Tilly jokes that she would go anywhere and be happy to get away from Miss Grimshaw, and Karen talks enthusiastically about Chicago and Saint Denis and California. Arthur can’t mistake the excitement in their voices. Javier laments the idea of another northern winter, and Lenny nods along. It's far from an end for some of them, Arthur thinks, not the way it is for Dutch.

\---

Spring begins to set in, the frantic greens and yellows become dark and sure on the trees. Arthur lingers around Dutch and Hosea for days, listening to their quiet planning. They all agreed - with some convincing Dutch - that it would be best to keep quiet about where they'll be going until they know who will be going with them. Arthur and John, of course, and Abigail with Jack. Four wanted men and a woman and a child, but at least it's not a gang, or so they keep telling themselves.

Javier is the first to come to them, and he stands before Dutch and Hosea and politely thanks them for their care and company.

Arthur thinks of the stories that Jack likes to listen to about noble kings and humble men.

"You've done a lot for me, Dutch. If leaving is what you need me to do, then I'll do it," Javier says simply. Dutch looks at him with a tender sadness.

“Javier, you always did right by me,” Dutch says. “I’ll miss watching you work. You be careful stealing chickens, now.”

“You too, Dutch,” Javier says, and shakes his hand, but Dutch rises to pull him into an embrace. Arthur catches Hosea’s eye and finds him expressionless.

Dutch insists on a party for Javier, and the others agree, always looking for something to celebrate. They drink and sing late into the night, and as the sky begins to lighten with morning, Arthur watches Javier pack up the last of his things. The others have nearly all drifted off to bed. Lucky Javier, Arthur thinks, leaving without any fanfare.

Arthur follows him to his horse and strokes Boaz’s nose while Javier secures his things.

“You take care now,” Arthur says, and Boaz snorts. “ _Both_ of you.”

“We always do,” Javier says. “Maybe I’ll run into you all again.”

“Sure. We’ll see. It’s been a pleasure working with you, Javier,” Arthur extends a hand for a handshake and Javier pulls him into a quick embrace instead. Arthur claps him on the back.

“And it’s been an honor working with you. Good luck out there. Take care of Dutch, he needs it,” Javier says as he pulls himself up into his saddle.

“I know,” Arthur says. He pats Boaz’s neck one more time. “Good luck.”

Arthur watches Javier soberly look around and then slowly ride out.

\---

“Hey Arthur,” Lenny calls out as Arthur rides back to camp. “You got a minute?”

Arthur pulls his horse to a stop and looks down at Lenny, whose eyes glitter up at him in the light dappling through the trees.

“What’s going on?” Arthur asks. Lenny’s face twitches, uncharacteristically uncertain.

“I was just wondering, you think Hosea and Dutch would let me stay along with you all? Just for a while.”

Arthur is relieved to hear him ask. He adores Lenny’s company nearly as much as Hosea does.

“I don’t see why not. Hosea'll say you oughta go for your own sake, but I reckon he loves you enough not to send you away.”

Lenny’s face lights up with relief and Arthur laughs softly before he can stop himself. Arthur leans in his saddle to clap him on the shoulder and rides into camp, depositing a deer on Pearson’s table. The girls are talking happily about Chicago and New York and Minneapolis in giggling tones, but they hush when anyone comes near.

Arthur finds himself laden with the duty of carrying to Dutch and Hosea all he knows about who plans to leave them and for where. Pearson confesses to his plans to leave, to head southeast and open a store per some old dream. Bill admits that he should leave, and after a long series of threats from Arthur and John and Hosea he assures them all that he’ll honorably cause no trouble, nor say their names, nor act a fool. Arthur trusts the fear in his face more than he has trusted any part of Bill before.

It comes as a surprising relief when, while hunting one day without speaking much at all, Charles mentions that he'll go east with them. Arthur had never considered that Charles would go with them, nor that he would leave them, and Arthur wonders what he had expected. 

Kieran will have to stay with them - though Arthur is sure he has no loyalties to Colm, but it would ease Dutch’s mind to know Kieran is accounted for. Arthur has grown fond of him, anyway.

“Hey, O’Driscoll,” Arthur says. Kieran looks up, mildly annoyed under the brim of his hat. “You coming with us?”

“I ain’t got nowhere else to go,” Kieran says. “Don’t reckon you folks would let me leave, anyway.”

“Oh, it won’t be so bad,” Arthur says. Kieran shakes his head and returns to brushing his horse.

Arthur avoids Strauss and his big leather book like they might bite him. Still, Strauss catches Arthur as he straightens up from washing his face, his voice fluttering on with that nervous superiority about how there are still debts the gang is owed. Arthur snaps the water from his hands and straightens his shoulders.

“You think that money makes any difference now? After all this?”

“We are certainly in no position to simply leave it behind - “

“We ain’t in a position to go causing more ruckus and hurting more people, neither,” Arthur says. He snatches the book from Strauss’s hands and opens it, eyes scanning over meaningless names and numbers, some he recognizes and some he doesn’t. “It’s all this shit that got us into this mess.”

“Herr Morgan…”

“No, no. I don’t care,” Arthur tosses the book aside. “Say whatever you wanna say to Dutch. But I urge you to leave, Mister Strauss, before things get ugly for you. We both know you ain’t cut out for this life, anyway.”

Arthur turns to leave and runs directly into Hosea, who gives him a somber, knowing nod. They’ll deal with Dutch later, together, if he should even remember Strauss was there.

The next morning, Strauss is gone. Arthur waits for Dutch to start asking questions, but they never seem to come. Arthur will have to thank Hosea later.

\---

The camp seems to compress itself, with some people vanishing and the lives of those who remain being packed into trunks and bags and wagons. Sadie spectates it, watching the strange politics of the camp, imagining that she has a place somewhere among them. She sees glimmers of her own grief in them all, and beacons of it in Dutch and Arthur and Miss Grimshaw. They're all people like her, who have lost and been hardened and left to make their own ways.

Sadie is grateful for their hospitality, for Abigail’s warm hands on hers each time the ache in her chest becomes too much to bear. She feels heavy and slow, and long to busy herself with anything - she misses cleaning the barn, fixing the fences, tending the animals. Things she did for Jake, relishing in cooperation and company.

Now, in a gang full of strangers, she reads the newspaper and prays it will distract her. She reads every word, each story about outlaws and bankrobbers, each listing for work, each obituary. One call for ranch hands has been in the papers since she started reading the news from Valentine, a vague but desperate listing from a B. MacFarlane in New Austin. Before, when Jake had been preoccupied with things and Sadie had to send in orders or make a reservation for auctions, she would list herself as an S. Adler, and none were ever the wiser. She wonders, looking at the minute veins in the inked letters, if that could be the reason why B. MacFarlane’s listing stays in the papers.

The camp buzzes with talk of leaving, of heading northeast, of settling down somewhere. Sadie hears talk of moving northeast, hears words like _home_ and _family_ often enough to make her feel spiteful and sick. And she sees B. MacFarlane in another newspaper, one from another nearby town. _Women and men welcome to apply,_ it says, and the print screams with a deeper desperation. 

“Think you’ll be staying with us, Mrs. Adler?” Arthur asks her as she folds the paper, in his politely distant but oddly caring way. She appreciates few things more, with the way that things are, than Arthur’s unassuming conversation. He waits for an answer, and Sadie suddenly thinks of the newspaper.

“I don’t think so,” Sadie says. “I keep seeing work in New Austin, in the papers. I think I’ll head out that way, I…I don’t feel right being here.”

"If that's what you want, ma'am. If it don't work out, you’re always welcome. Write to us in St. Louis, and I’ll write to you from wherever Dutch puts us.”

Sadie suddenly feels sorry for her decision, but Arthur’s eyes betray no hurt feelings.

“Sure, Arthur,” Sadie says.

Days later, Sadie finds herself wishing Abigail well, telling Jack to be good, and thanking Dutch and Hosea quickly for their kindness. Arthur gives her George, the horse he had collected from her own stable, and she reluctantly takes the reins and thanks him. She slips into his hand one of the work listings from the paper, carefully torn out and folded.

“I’ll write,” Arthur says. “You promise you’ll take care of yourself, Mrs. Adler.”

“I will, Arthur. Thank you.”

Arthur holds out a revolver and swings the rifle from his shoulder, holding it out to her somberly but without ceremony. She takes them, and refuses the stack of bills he offers her. Abigail quickly embraces her one more time, and Sadie mounts up and leaves before she can see the tears fall from where they well up in Abigail’s eyes.

The road feels long ahead of her, and she tucks her hair up under her hat, grateful for the long pants she had bought in Valentine. She expects to be overcome with sadness and begin suddenly weeping - as she has yet to truly cry in earnest - but it does not come. Later, she thinks, when the loneliness feels real, and she braces herself for it.

When she settles in for the night, a river roaring nearby through the trees, she finds a small bundle of bills in her saddlebag.

\---

When they started packing up their things, slowly but surely reining in their lives into wagons and saddlebags, Hosea is not certain. It started without Dutch’s orders, without any exhausted nagging from Susan or Hosea - coming naturally, like a changing season.

Hosea takes careful stock of the others, where they plan to go, if they plan to go anywhere at all. The girls all plan to go to Chicago, though Karen toys again and again with Saint Denis. Uncle dramatically agrees to go his own way in St. Louis. What to do with Reverend Swanson, everyone quietly agrees they’ll decide along the way. Susan tentatively offers to go with him, wherever it may be, and Dutch is flustered enough that the conversation ends there.

"We'll cross those bridges when we get there," Hosea assures him, and Dutch agrees with a troubled nod.

Dutch paces and talks to any open ear, a glimmer in his eye again, hopeful again about something.

The morning comes that they realize there is nothing left to prepare. Hosea goes to Dutch and lays a hand on his shoulder, tells him softly that it’s time to go. Dutch looks at him with a sad, pleading look but closes his book and rises to his feet, calling the others together. He speaks to them with his usual confidence that Hosea knows is far from truthful, rambling courageously about their departure.

\---

As the wagons fall into the grooves of the road, the world still muted by the early dawn's frost, Hosea looks back and watches the mountains receding behind them. It will still be some time before they disappear from the horizon, but he tries to hold them in his memory in their present magnitude. He won’t see them again, should things not take a turn for the worse, and it aches to think of it.

When he turns back around he finds Dutch watching him.

“Something troubling you?” Hosea asks.

“Never, long as you’re here,” Dutch says.

“Don’t say things you don’t want me reminding you of later.”

“Oh, Hosea, why do you think I say them?” Dutch says, and Hosea hears more of a smile than what Dutch shows him.

\---

To be on the road feels right, even if moving east again feels horribly wrong. It won’t be too long, they all keep saying, and they’ll make it before fall even comes. They may be right, with summer still a ways from blooming over the country. The days and nights merge into one another, full of reminders from Hosea to behave in towns, not to drink too much, reminding everyone of the stories they’ve decided on, and watching Dutch carefully for his moods.

Dutch and Hosea discuss their plans whenever they share a wagon seat or take to the road on horseback. They’ll say they were investors, from the eastern plains gone west hoping to increase some small fortune with their respective sons. The others, who are less easily accounted for - Charles and Kieran and Lenny and Sean - are working out the remainders of their contracts and hoping to start lives in civilization once again. It works, they decide, and spend hours bickering over names for themselves.

\---

The dawn comes earlier on the plains, and the gang wakes up and wordlessly sets to work packing up what little they needed to bed down for the night. With everything stowed and everyone accounted for, Abigail settles into the back of the wagon, still nauseous with early rising after too little sleep, pulling a nearly-sleeping Jack into her lap. The men are talking amongst themselves, assigning themselves their roles in their tired caravan. It’s become a routine after only a few days on the road.

“Mind if I join you?” Molly asks. Abigail shakes her head.

“Come on up,” Abigail offers her a hand and Molly pulls herself up into the wagon bed.

“Thanks,” Molly says quietly. Abigail only nods and rests her head on Jack’s where it lolls on her shoulder.

The men’s voices change and the horses sense it, becoming noisy at once, and the wagons creak and lurch into motion. The sky is still dark over the mountains they leave behind them. Abigail dozes off again with Jack’s comfortable weight on her chest.

Abigail wakes to a still-pale sky, but feeling more rested than before. Molly is awake, reading a book silently. It’s a pleasure Abigail envies, and she swallows her resentment over it. Molly sees Abigail awake and closes her book, and Abigail’s temper flashes with an odd appreciation and a sharp annoyance at once.

She turns her attention to Jack, who is sound asleep against her but overly-warm with sleep. She carefully moves him to rest beside her instead, between herself and Molly. She smooths Jack’s hair from his face and looks up to find Molly watching her with a soft sorrow in her face. Abigail looks away, watching the horses behind them and the way Arthur leans on the wagon seat to talk to Charles riding on horseback beside him.

The scrub passes, and the sun climbs higher into the sky to deepen its blues, and Abigail and Molly sit in silence, but Molly doesn’t reach for her book, nor does Abigail distract herself with Jack.

“He’s a good boy, you know,” Molly finally says. Abigail looks to her and Molly nods to Jack where he lays curled between them with his head in Abigail’s lap, his fist in her skirt.

“He is. Thanks for saying so,” Abigail says, and feels strangely regretful. “He likes you.”

“Oh, he just likes my stories,” Molly shrugs.

“No, he likes you. It takes much more than stories. You’re good with him,” Abigail says, and before she can stop herself the dam on her sincerity breaks. “I’m sure you’d be a far better mother than I am.”

“You’re a fine mother,” Molly says, with such evident sincerity that Abigail wonders how she ever expected Molly to be anything else.

"Thank you," Abigail says quietly. Molly only nods. "You would be a fine mother as well."

Molly says nothing, just blinks slowly. Abigail watches her.

"Would you like to be a mother?" Abigail asks carefully, feeling as if she's broken some unknown rule. Molly waits to answer.

"I would, I think," Molly says finally, nodding her head. "I was lucky to have the chance, but...the time wasn't right. I understand that now."

Abigail turns to look at her, breaking the confidence that comes with sitting side by side with another.

"When?" Abigail asks quietly, though no one can hear them. Molly swallows. "You don't mean with Dutch?”

"I didn't want for it to happen," Molly says softly. "I realized it and I kept it a secret. And the day that I'd finally decided to tell him..." Molly grinds her teeth and sighs, “I lost it.”

Abigail remembers a week of Molly being laid up ill in Dutch’s tent, alone, when no one had paid her any mind and a few had whispered that she was playing sick. Dutch had hardly worried over her even then.

“I’m sorry, Molly,” Abigail says. Molly waves it away.

“I’m better for it. Back then I thought it might make him better, but…”

Abigail reaches over Jack for Molly’s hand where it rests in her skirts and finds it shaking slightly. Molly ducks her head and sniffles, and Abigail turns her eyes back to Arthur driving along behind them, now yelling back and forth with Sean who rides his unruly horse alongside the wagon.

“It’s not Dutch, you know, that’s got me like this,” Molly says, her voice bubbling with nerves, “not anymore, now. It’s just me.”

“Oh, Molly, why?” Abigail asks. She turns to find Molly so flushed that her freckles have nearly disappeared.

“Oh, you know why. It’s embarrassing. Knowing all of you saw me acting such a fool,” Molly frees her hand to wipe at her eyes and nose. Molly’s tears are hardly a new sight, but for the first time Abigail finds herself fully moved by them. “I should have known better.”

“Molly, if you think we ain’t all through with Dutch van der Linde and his tendencies with women you might be a mad woman after all.”

Molly laughs, a bright sound that surprises Abigail. Molly has laughed before, the practiced laughter reserved for men, but Abigail has never heard her laugh so truly.

“Everyone knows how he is. They’ll all come around,” Abigail says, squeezing Molly’s hand. Molly squeezes it in turn. Jack stirs between them and sits up with bleary eyes. Abigail lets go of Molly’s hand to smooth Jack’s hair.

“Do you think you’ll be staying?” Abigail asks Molly.

“I don’t think so,” Molly admits. “I…it hurts to be here. I just don’t know where to go.”

“We’ll get you situated, Molly,” Abigail says, though she feels vaguely disappointed. Molly nods her thanks and Jack leans sleepily against her.

\---

The road has looked the same for days, and Dutch has run out of things to say or think about it. The middle of the country looks different than it did when they passed through it westward - newly tied down with roads and rails and farms. It feels too small now, and feels smaller with every mile. Dutch can hardly sleep, only finding rest when they stop where the wilds still feel wild.

“We’ve been close to towns before,” Hosea tells him.

“This is different. You know that,” Dutch says bitterly, staring up at the stars. Hosea shrugs and leaves him to his sulking.

The next day, Hosea calls for an early halt, well before the sun has begun to sink below the horizon. Dutch is visibly annoyed with it, though he says nothing. Hosea calls for Arthur and John, holding Dutch in place by the wrist as the others set up a meager camp for the night.

“Unfortunately I think we ought to change our looks some, gentlemen,” Hosea says. Arthur and John look at him warily. Dutch sighs. “It’ll put us all at ease. It’s not like _dress-up_ , Arthur, no need to fuss about it.”

“Ain’t like I can get rid of the scars on my face, Hosea,” John says.

“Lucky for you, dear boy, they’re not on your bounty posters,” Hosea says. “But you should still cut your hair.”

John groans and Arthur laughs. which earns a chuckle from Dutch.

“You’re gonna have to shave, too,” John tells Dutch, which sends Arthur laughing further, bracing himself on John’s shoulder. Dutch looks suddenly disturbed and turns to Hosea.

“What about _you_?“ Dutch asks.

“All he has to do is quit looking so mean all the time,” Arthur says. Hosea gives him a look of playful warning and Dutch laughs.

“I’ll cut my hair,” Hosea says.

“Grow it out,” Arthur suggests, and starts laughing again. Hosea shoos him away and he leaves to dig his mirror and shaving kit from his saddlebags. John follows him, and Hosea hears John complaining as he walks away.

Miss Grimshaw starts a pot of stew, and Hosea watches as Arthur tidies his beard and starts carefully cutting at his hair. Abigail approaches him and holds her hand out for the rusty scissors and makes quick work of Arthur’s hair before turning on a frustrated John. He sits with his arms crossed while Arthur and Jack watch Abigail cut his hair. Hosea thinks of the days spent bargaining with John to cut his hair or tie it up out of his eyes, years ago before any of this found them.

Hosea finds Dutch with his bath kit, staring sadly into a small mirror balanced on the wheel of one of the wagons.

“Need help?” Hosea asks. Dutch nods. Hosea pulls him by the arm to sit on a chest at the back of the wagon. “It’s not so bad, Dutch. You’ll feel better about things when you won’t be recognized.”

“You would say that,” Dutch says, handing his kit to Hosea, “with all your years in wigs and dresses.”

“Yes, well,” Hosea says, tying Dutch’s hair back, “that was all for love of the stage. And love of a long skirt.”

“And you still never wore one for me,” Dutch says. The argument is ancient, as much as anything between them.

“Does that mean you’ve stopped trying?” Hosea asks, kneeling down in front of Dutch and lathering the shaving soap.

Dutch doesn’t answer. Hosea uses the pause to hold Dutch’s chin, trimming his mustache short. Dutch winces as he does it, and Hosea quickly moves to brushing the soap over his face before he can start talking again. He carefully shaves along Dutch’s jaw and lips, thinking of when Dutch was young and scruffy and seemingly incapable of both competently shaving and growing any considerable facial hair. Hosea had shown him how to shave without nicking himself then, though he suspected that Dutch’s apparent slow learning amidst all his brightness was a welcome ploy to get Hosea to touch him. Hosea wonders if it may be the same now.

With a rag Hosea wipes off Dutch’s face, and with Dutch’s hair tied back the way he wore it as a cleaner-shaven young man Hosea finds himself unable to hold back a laugh.

“There he is,” Hosea says, smoothing his thumb over Dutch’s cheekbone.

“What?” Dutch asks, but a smile plays at the corner of his mouth.

“You look like a man I would rob at a campfire,” Hosea says. Dutch shoves at him lightly. Hosea, emboldened in some way beyond his judgment, leans forward and kisses Dutch quickly, where he had just seen the hint of a smile. Without looking at Dutch’s face Hosea rises to his feet and moves to untie his hair, starting on cutting it before Dutch can protest.

“Is this really necessary?” Dutch asks.

“It is now,” Hosea holds out a handful of hair in front of him. Dutch sighs.

Hosea works in sentimental silence, wondering if Dutch is thinking the same. It’s been some time since they last cut one another’s hair on the road. Dutch’s hair has miraculously staved off any grey intrusions save for in the swirl of hair at the crown of his head. Hosea thinks to tell him, but resists it. His age is more evident with his hair short and parted.

“Dare I look in a mirror?” Dutch asks dryly as Hosea studies him. 

“Sure. It suits you,” Hosea says. Dutch holds up his mirror and furrows his brow. Hosea nods assuringly. “You look fine, Dutch. Like a trustworthy citizen.”

“Enough,” Dutch says, without any bite. Hosea brushes the hair from Dutch’s shoulders and offers him a hand to help him up.

Dutch holds up the mirror for Hosea as he cuts his own hair, and Dutch carefully cleans up the back, grumbling that he had never been good at it and Hosea saying firmly over and over that he does not care.

Returning to the circle around the fire - admittedly shocked by John and Arthur’s unfamiliar stylings - they are met with affectionate laughter and careful teasing. To laugh over a meal again with Dutch at Hosea’s side feels good and welcome, if painfully unfamiliar after so long. There may be something for them after all, somewhere at the end of the road.

\---

Dutch does find an uncomfortable peace in not recognizing himself in the mirror, and in the new guises of Hosea or the boys. Hosea laughs when he sees Dutch curiously touching the smoothness of his own face as if it surprises him. He feels safe in his unfamiliarity and with Hosea at his side again, seemingly content.

Somewhere in Kansas, Susan comes to sit with Dutch at the fire after everyone has retired into the restless, dreamless sleeps of the road. She places her small warm hand on his knee and he feels his stomach sink.

“Dutch,” Susan starts, and Dutch swallows and shakes his head. “I think I’ll be on my way soon.”

He’s grateful she says it plainly. Susan has always been good for that, in all things.

“Here?”

“I think so. I’ll take Reverend Swanson with me, so he won’t be alone or putting you all at risk,” Susan says.

“Thank you,” Dutch says softly.

“Please, I owe it to all of you. I know you boys can take care of yourselves now, what you need is to thin out this herd a bit.”

“Susan, you know I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been a better friend to me than I deserve, and I…I wish I could have made this work out the way you deserve.”

“Mister van der Linde, you’ve done just fine. This is just as it should be. Of course, the Reverend could be faring better, but I think I can straighten him out. I straightened you all out, after all.”

“That you did,” Dutch laughs softly. “You’re a good woman, Miss Grimshaw. I’ll write to you, once you know where you’re heading.”

“I think it’ll be Lawrence. It’s about a day away,” she says. Dutch nods. They sit in silence, and she covers Dutch’s hand with her own. The feeling of having failed her rings loudly through his chest and he tries to bury it under the peace that has fallen between them.

The morning after the next Dutch bids goodbye to Susan, a simple and short formality in the shadows of their conversation at the fireside. He thanks the Reverend again, who, in his relative sobriety brought on by the days on the road, is able to shed a sentimental tear and thank Dutch with a sincere embrace.

\---

They settle in for the night somewhere between towns, hardly even bedding down as the stars start to creep into the sky. The land seems flatter at night, the low scrub obscured in the darkness, the world seeming to be made entirely of stars.

With little ceremony, the others disappear to sleep, thoroughly exhausted. Hosea sits at the fire, watching the sparks float up into the night and vanish. Dutch comes to sit with him, unusually still and quiet, worn weary from his days of enthusiasm - he's been singing the praises of the road and their plan again, to everyone's relief. 

“Strange that this is the last time we’ll be making such an exodus,” Dutch says quietly, stretching his legs.

“The last time we did this was supposed to be the last time,” Hosea says. Dutch huffs through his nose.

“Didn’t feel that way,” Dutch says, and he knows it’s the wrong answer as it leaves his lips.

“You never wanted to settle down, did you? Not really,” Hosea asks, and the question enters the space between them like a musket ball. Dutch sighs, puts his head in his hands.

“I did - and I do, Hosea. Because…” Dutch inhales heavily, “I’ve got to, for all of you. For you.”

“I know,” Hosea says softly.

“I know we can’t keep on going like this but I don’t know if I’m built for much else, Hosea,” Dutch says. Hosea says nothing, startled by the admission, finding it reminiscent of a Dutch that Hosea has hardly seen in recent years. “You are, though, and I’m afraid that’s all the hope I got left in this whole thing.”

“You said the same thing when we picked up Arthur,” Hosea says. “You know I don’t consider myself a wise man, but I’ve found that we don’t know what we’re built for till we try it.”

Dutch chews on his lips and rests his elbows on his knees.

“I can’t do this without you,” Dutch says softly.

“I ain’t going nowhere,” Hosea says. “Neither are you, for that matter.”

\---

Stopping in St. Louis, Karen collects her trunk and bids them goodbye, bound for Saint Denis. The girls weep as she sets off, and Mary-Beth gets drunk for the first time that night - with Arthur and Sean and Lenny - in her honor. Mary-Beth throws herself over Tilly in an affectionate stupor, promising that wherever they go they’ll be there together. Sean lies across Lenny's lap, singing softly around a bottle until the tune gives way to snores, and Lenny resigns himself to sleeping propped against a wagon wheel. 

Uncle announces his abrupt departure. He cries as he does it, in some dramatic story about no place he’s ever been comparing to Dutch and the gang. They bid him farewell with a humble party but a loving ruckus, and he waves them off as their caravan departs finally northbound. No one is especially sad to see him go, but the emptiness is felt even amid the jokes that perhaps now more work will get done without having to step over him.

\---

The morning is slow to start - Sean and Arthur having overslept, the others sluggish in the cool morning air, trouble with one of the wagons. Abigail tries to feed a disoriented Mary-Beth and leaves her in the care of Tilly and Hosea to collect her own things.

Jack runs past Abigail after Arthur and Sean to see about securing a loose wagon wheel. Abigail sighs and gathers her skirt, kneeling down to roll up Jack’s blankets. Despite the trouble with the wagon wheel, Abigail still feels as if she and Jack are the hindrances to any movement. She had apologized to Hosea for it once, and he had shushed her as if she had said something silly. Dutch overheard her, waxing on about the country having been mapped in part by a woman with a baby on her back, though Abigail is unmoved, sure that it’s not a life any girl would choose.

Something weighs down the blankets, one of Jack’s rocks that he tends to carry around so often, and Abigail gives the blankets a tug. With a glint of silver and a metallic thud, a revolver bounces onto the dirt from the flannel. Abigail’s brow furrows, picking up the gun and studying it. It’s too small to be hers, too big to be Molly’s. She moves to call for John or Arthur, ready to scold them.

“Mama!” Jack’s voice excitedly interrupts her as he runs to her, babbling about something he’s just seen, and he stops suddenly before her with shock in his small face. Abigail sees the worried calculations in his round eyes - something she knows well from John’s face - and her stomach sinks, her heart pounding codlin her fingertips against the gun’s weight in her hand.

“Jack,” Abigail starts, “do you know what this is?”

“No,” Jack says, entirely too convinced.

“Jack, who gave this to you?” Abigail asks quietly and firmly, and detecting something in her voice that only a child could hear, Jack’s lip trembles and he steels himself.

“Uncle gave it to me,” Jack says, and Abigail can nearly hear the details her son has omitted. Jack has never been one to fib. Uncle is many kinds of a fool, but not one to give a gun to a boy.

“Convenient for him that he ain’t here to get an earful from me,” Abigail says. Jack looks suddenly frightened. “Guns ain’t a thing for boys, Jack. You could hurt somebody, or God forbid - “

“What if something happens?” Jack asks, an edge of persuasive panic in his voice.

“That’s why boys don’t need guns,” Abigail says.

“No, what if something _happens_ ,“ Jack says again, lacking some ability to understand what he fears.

Abigail’s own worry is reflected back at her in Jack’s brow. She suddenly feels sorry for her panic and anger, now frustrated over their circumstances. Jack’s world is more frightening than any boy’s should be, or any man’s or woman’s, and his father is useless, and everyone around him is frightened, and it was not so long ago that his mother had a gun pointed at her as everyone who was meant to protect them - John included - slept.

“Oh, Jack,” Abigail sighs, setting down the pistol and inviting Jack into her arms. “There ain’t nothing that can happen that the rest of us can’t take care of. It ain’t a boy’s job. But where did you get this gun?”

“Uncle,” Jack says. “He wasn’t using it.”

Abigail sighs.

“Boys shouldn’t be thieving, either. Now come here. Don’t you go doing this again until you know how to use a gun, alright?”

Jack nods and embraces her quickly and starts rolling up his blankets with his small, careful hands, avoiding her eyes with his young embarrassment. Abigail pats his head as she gets up, and quickly finds Molly to ask her to mind him. When she finds John, he’s securing things into one of the wagons.

“John Marston,” Abigail starts, and he sighs as he turns, but his face shifts at whatever shines through her own. “Whose goddamn gun is this?” She holds the pistol out to him.

“Christ, I don’t know. Uncle’s, maybe.”

“Jack’s been sleeping with it.”

“Why the hell - “ John looks rightfully alarmed, and Abigail is relieved to see him afraid.

“He don’t feel safe, John, and he worries about everybody else. Where the hell are you in all this? You’re his father, you’re supposed to - “

“God damn it, Abigail, I know - “

“So where are you, John?”

“You’ve all but replaced me with Miss O’Shea - “

“ _Molly_ gives him the half of the mothering that I can’t because - “

“Jesus, Abigail, there ain’t much I can offer you - “

“You can spend time with him, John. You can look out for us like everybody else does in your stead. It ain’t difficult.”

John sighs and rests his forehead against the sunbleached wagon.

“This ain’t no life for a boy,” John says softly, “and I hate that we brought him into it.”

“I don’t,” Abigail snaps, “and you shouldn’t, either. He’s already here, we can’t help that. The least we can do is make sure he makes it out and into something better.”

“I guess,” John sighs. “Jack ain’t never gonna be safe like this. Not with these people, not with Dutch acting the way he does. We can leave, like Hosea’s been saying to. Not now, but…later. Before things get bad again.”

“John, when I know you can do all you say then I’ll bring Jack and go with you anywhere. But for now…until I know you can be a man about it, I ain’t doing this alone, Dutch be damned.”

John’s face flickers with something like fear and anger. Abigail shakes her head and sighs, and John looks at the gun in his hand.

“Where’s Jack now?”

“With Molly.”

Ahead, Arthur calls that the wagon is fixed, and Dutch calls in turn for everyone to mount up or settle in. John sighs. Abigail offers him a sad smile and turns to go.

“I’ll do it, Abigail,” John calls after her. “I’ll do it right, I swear.”

Bedding down along the road, Abigail listens to Hosea talk to Arthur about how close they must be. To what, she still isn’t certain. There’s some image in all their minds, something on the map that she can’t see, but it brings excitement nonetheless. Jack asks often where they’re going, and he gets uncertain answers, and he questions Abigail in circles.

John sits down next to Abigail at the fire. She smiles at him, and he smiles back, the side of his mouth still frozen from the swelling and scarring along his cheek. She ruffles his newly short hair for the first time since she cut it.

“You look handsome,” she says. John ducks his head.

“Is Jack okay?”

“He’s fine, just ashamed, I think.”

“Is there any room for me with you and Miss O’Shea?” John asks.

“Sure,” Abigail says, and John nods to himself. Behind them, Abigail hears Jack ask Hosea again what it means to stay somewhere forever, and she wonders if any of them truly know.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/jukebxgrad).


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